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How's this for a myth? A handsome young man grows up on a beautiful island, living close to nature. He finds a slab of spear-like board and discovers he can use it to challenge waves bigger than anyone thought could be tamed. He rides them flawlessly as they thunder and crash around him. Even his daily life is extraordinary: He patrols beaches to save those who venture out too far --- and no one dies, ever, on his watch. Then comes a mythic opportunity to recreate an ancient voyage. Soon after the double-hulled canoe sails, however, it runs into trouble. Our hero volunteers to swim 12 miles across choppy water to get help for his mates. He sets off --- and is never seen again.
But this is no myth. It's the life story of Eddie Aikau, the 32-year-old Hawaiian waterman who died in l978 trying to save his shipmates (who, as it happened, were all rescued a few hours after he started swimming for shore). And what a story! Start with a kid as handsome as Jason Scott Lee, as athletic as Duke Kahanamoku and as soulful as Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. He loves the water so much he drops out of school at 16. At 21, when he's not much known as a surfer, he shows up at Waimea Bay and triumphs over 40-foot waves. Suddenly he is in the Pantheon of big-wave surfers. And stays there until his death.
It was inevitable there would be a book about Eddie. And that it would be called EDDIE WOULD GO --- the phrase other watermen used to describe Aikau's unrelenting willingness to leap into deadly surf to save swimmers in trouble. What was not inevitable? That EDDIE WOULD GO would be written by someone as gifted as Stuart Coleman. A writer, teacher and surfer, he strikes just the right balance between Eddie's life on land and his heroics on the water. He tells a double story well: courage and integrity on the water, a spiritual quest on land, as Aikau pondered what it meant to be a Hawaiian in a rapidly changing world.
Forty foot-high waves. Normally brave surfers standing on shore. And one surfer --- Eddie Aikau --- smiling as he and his board become one with the water. It's an image that will warm you on cold winter nights. And, in summer, make you just a bit more respectful of kids on surfboards, dreaming of glory.
--- Reviewed by Jesse Kornbluth
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